Hey All
I have an Ensoniq Mirage V2 (solid yellow font) that I’m trying to get working using a an October 2024 GoTek PCB model SFRKC30.AT4.35 with the OLED screen and the rotary encoder control.
It has FlashFloppy+ v3.42 384k according to it’s boot screen. S1 is jumpered and there is another jumper sideways across the J5 and JA pins that are located away from the 34-pin FDD data cable. CPU is the Artery AT32F435RGT7SW9HA-000
I ordered this off of eBay before I saw that Syntaur sells these so I’m hoping for everyone’s help if you can. I’ve been scouring Google searches/results for a simple explanation of what steps to do to put the appropriate files on the new 4GB (formatted to FAT32) thumbdrive that gets the drive recognized and boots the Mirage.
My questions are:
What files need to be on the root of the USB drive for the Mirage to boot properly?
Where does the MASOS disk image go?
What are the file names and where do I get them?
What parameters do I need to set in a config file specifically for an Ensoniq Mirage?
Where do I put the image files on the usb drive; just load dozens into the root directory of the usb drive or does each image file need to be in it’s own folder?
Is there a filename number-of-characters limitation? Underscores mandatory instead of spaces? All CAPs or lowercase or mixes of upper/lower cases?
Are there any jumpers that I need to change to enable this GoTek to work on the Mirage?
I’ve seen a few references to some of these things but nothing complete A to Z. A lot of the references are from years ago and some say you must use this version of a GoTek drive and this here or there. There is nothing I’ve found so far from 2023-2024 for the current hardware being sold.
A lot of good information is on the FlashFloppy Github. That’s where the sort of A to Z explanation is but it’s written to explain setting these up for many different computers and synths so it takes some picking through to find the right information. I’ll do my best to explain the basics to get these going with a Mirage. First thing is the jumpers need to be moved. For the Ensoniq Mirage you need a jumper only at S0. Next, in your FF.CFG file you need the line: host = ensoniq
If you don’t have a FF.CFG file there’s a template with explanations of the various settings, some of which are cosmetic and you may want to tweak to your liking.
No other files are necessary for the drive to boot properly, just your floppy images will be needed to boot the Mirage. You can put your floppy disk images in the root or organize them into folders however you like. Same with OS files. Spaces are allowed, upper and lower case letters all show up. Files can be named quite long, not sure how long but the screen will scroll through a long name so it can all be read.
For the Mirage I like to use .HFE files for all of my disk images. I think it requires more setting up for it to read .IMG files (more info on the host platforms section of the FlashFloppy Github). The HXC Floppy Emulator Software is useful for converting disk images between formats.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I have installed quite a few of these in Mirages and other Ensoniqs. We also sell a flash drive preloaded with all of the Ensoniq factory libraries, Syntaur sample library, SoundProcess and MASOS.
Thank you very very much Travis!!! I currently have my Mirage V2 apart to replace all of the electrolytic capacitors on the power-supply board and the mainboard (same for my ESQ-1 boards). When I would play any key of a loaded sample, the two-digit seven-segment display would modulate fiercely and as a repair tech that just worries me too much to let that slide
Not long after I put up my original post here, I found a German site by MonoTanz that offered a whole bunch of great Ensonniq Mirage info as a digital download for 10 Euros via PayPal that was well worth the few bucks for it. His info gave me the info to get the MASOSv2.hfe file to boot the Mirage although I’m stuck with only the “One One Two Two” samples as I can’t load any of my other samples in the root drive except one or two Uppers for only an eight to fifteen key range. I cannot load any Lower samples at all.
Through MonoTanz’s package instructions, I created another FlashFloppy thumbdrive with the Soundprocess OS and samples that works 100%. Woohoo!!!
I had to change the GoTek pin jumper on S1 to S0. I also had to edit the FF.cfg file to rotate the display 180-degrees back to normal for display-left-side drive mounting.
Likely more to come as I inch closer to getting this all working with everyone’s help.
I hadn’t noticed until I looked up this weblink that there are a whole bunch of other Ensoniq models on there.
I’m a dumbass so I’m trying to piece all of this stuff together myself. If you want a sane path to doing this, buy the preconfigured thumbdrive here on Syntaur :):)
And if you don’t have the GoTek drive yet, buy the whole GoTek/Thumbdrive kaboodle here on Syntaur as well. At best, I’ve saved maybe $10 overall with all of the time and research I’ve done - and I’m still not there yet…ugh
